Any ethicist for a corporation is clearly a PR move, right?

Like, a pure researcher for a corporation might have some genuine overlap and shared interests where breakthroughs in the research benefit both parties, but an ethicist?? For a legal construct that's defined by and bound to sociopathically pursue profit? Come on now.

It depends on the kind of company, and the context. An ethicist at a company doing drug/medical research probably mostly oversees that the company's research practices are legal and safe (and that participants give informed consent).

At typical corporation, something like a Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer (CECO) would be largely focused on legal compliance - making sure company personnel aren't engaged in bribery, fraud, insider trading etc. The value of this role (and the medical example) is to prevent lawsuits and/or prosecution.

For a company like Meta, an ethicist is likely concerned with the inherent ethical concerns of running a social media company, which impacts the mental health of its users, many of whom are minors. For AI companies, the ethics of releasing models that are capable of doing dangerous things. In name, the job probably involves giving recommendations about how to ethically implement features in the platform to minimize harm. In practice, the job probably accomplishes very little.

>Any ethicist for a corporation is clearly a PR move, right?

I think a lot of it depends on the size of the company. Startup? Sure, maybe it's a real thing.

Gigantic company like a member of FAANG or MANGOS? absolutely a PR move.

Companies are not bound to sociopathically pursue profit. It would be in their long-term interest to care about stakeholders outside the boardroom, and until a certain person with tiny hands started a war on anything remotely "woke", the market rewarded ESG metrics.